Make cotton candy at home

If you are anything like us, you are suddenly filled with childlike glee when you think of big fluffy poofs of cotton candy. The thought of making it at home has a certain appeal, but that machine is a mystery reserved only for those elite enough to get through cotton candy maker school. Or so we thought. As it turns out, it is actually quite simple. You can make one and be serving cotton candy in an afternoon with parts you probably have sitting around. The video above is pretty easy to follow, but if you want more information, there’s an instructable as well.

I would be wary of the cotton candy you made considering the different metal parts used. Stainless steel would be better and safer in my opinion. Remember that even cereal boxes have had PCBs in them – one reason why plastic bags are used inside the box – and then there is the safety of the plastic bags and different types of plastics – even plastics that were supposedly OK have BPA.

Considering that this metal was used in a drink container it should be safe. Bare metal isn’t dangerous unless it is coated with something, and he removed the coating. It looks like steel though not necessarily stainless.

But it wouldn’t be too hard to do this from stainless steel if you have access to a lathe or mill.

Ok, I admit this is pretty cool, but SERIOUSLY! Look at the date the instructable was published. October of _07_! Yeah, the youtube vid is new, but he even says it’s not his project. He just built it according to the instructable 2.5 years later, and recorded it. How is this new and exciting HAD?

I really like it. It might be from 07 but it’s new to me. The commercial candy machine heads are very expensive and this simple solution seems to work.You might be able to substitute the bottle caps for another metal food container, for example a round tuna container.

For heating, I think I would go with a heat gun set on low and directed towards the top of the container. Seems like it would take forever using a small lighter.

I might actually give this project a try. It’s a simple and rewarding project and parts are easily substituted.

@tyco
Hot air popcorn makers use a different principal – a heat gun is directed toward the kernels which keeps them in constant motion and slowly heats them until the moisture content causes them to explode into white, fluffy goodness.

A cotton candy maker spins while heating the sugar. While the sugar is crystalline, it cannot escape through the small holes. Once it melts it flows through the holes and crystallizes more or less instantly into a long string, providing the texture.

The holes in a hot air popcorn maker would probably be too large to work – the sugar would just be thrown out before melting.

Is the spinning piece centered? If not, the piece would actually be creating some wind via the Coandă effect. The off-center rotation would push a little bit of air around it and, since it’s rotating at high speeds, blow out the flame. Try heating it from below( taking breaks as not to heat up the motor) or use a hot light bulb.